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I was going to use PC104 to build a computer for my car. They're perfect because of their size and low power, but it's almost as simple these days to get a mini-itx board and do it that way. I ended up going with an old 486, but i'm hoping to rebuild the project... mp3car has a lot of projects like this, a few use PC104

PC 104 is basically a form factor, just like ATX, mini-ATX, mini-ITX, etc. It is one of the smallest form factor out there, largely used in industrial automation setup.

The one characteristic that makes PC104 interesting is the "pass through" bus connector. Consisting of 104 pins (hence it's name), you stack modules of extension card on the base board, and build vertically your components. See link:

PC104 FAQ with pictures

They tend to be pretty low power consumption, and there are a mind boggling array of PC104 modules out there, from radio modems to GPS receivers to servo controllers and 3 axis accelerometers. For hobby use, I wouldn't really go with them, since they are more expensive than the much cheaper mini-itx boards (which is what I will be using for my next car computer).

Mini-ITX info link

Man, reading through the projects - they outfitted a 1997 Corvette with a "fly by wire" steering. My god, I wish my research lab has the amount of cash handy to buy a corvette for a ressearch project...

-=- Terence

A great place to look for small form factor machines is over at mini-itx.com, great small form factor stuff. For software, freshmeat.net and a bit of scripting is your friend :D

That is, if I ever watched television anymore :P

Seriously, though. A TiVo seems like it would make TV watching almost convenient enough actually view. I got a little Via EIPA mini-itx PC that I was planning to set-up as a sort of mail-server/emulation game machine/media player/PVR box, but it turned out to be kind of unstable (I think it's the RAM) and I turned out to be to lazy to get that stuff setup. Plus, a homebrew system would still require me to keep up with listings to program.

On the other hand, I don't really want to pay for the listing service. I'd like to see an open source PVR software package with TiVo-like abilities and user-supplied listings... like the old CDDB before it got corpritized. It would be a lot of work, but I think it could work if there were enough users.

Another solution would be to have people pay the minimum needed to pay for people to license Tvguide listings or whatever. It probably wouldn't be more then $5/year or something.

Yeah, go fanless

I have done something similar, using an EPIA M-6000 and a Hauppauge WinPVR 250 board. It plays back DVD's flawlessly, and since the WinPVR 250 is a hardware encoder, it encodes flawlessly as well. There are a few issues, however. Currently, there are no linux drivers (but I believe they are coming along quickly.) The second thing you should note is that if you run the CPU at full power, and run the MPEG encoder at full power, the system overheats fairly rapidly if you don't have a case fan. It makes a huge difference in heat, with a relatively minor noise difference. My Casetronic 2699R with the case fan running is about as loud as my Playstation 2, and a little louder than my laptop. It's also about the same noise level as my Directivo. If you want a totally silent case, you might try the Hush PC, but I don't know if that will solve the heat dissipation from the MPEG card.

Why not hack apart a VCR or tape deck? That is what many people have done on mini-itx.com? This one is particularly cool. And as a previous post stated, rack mount cases are the same size as standard A/V components (19").

Why not hack apart a VCR or tape deck? That is what many people have done on mini-itx.com? This one is particularly cool. And as a previous post stated, rack mount cases are the same size as standard A/V components (19").

I have the EPIA-600 /proc/cpuinfo says I'm a CentaurHauls at 599.723 MHz, and is quite nice. No fan, and plays MP3s like nobody's business. Don't know about video or X, see linitx or miniitx for more info!

If you use the EPIA-M you might want to consider the ALSA sound drivers. Oh, that's the other problem. If you want to use 5.1 sound, you lose your line-in and mic inputs.

Instead of spending money on an uber-silent case and mobo (allthough a mini-itx would do the job), I'm considering this.

I figure I can hook this bad boy up to my powerhouse machine and just send it all wireless.

The only thing I'm concerned about is sound quality. I've already got a dvd player so I don't need that functionality. I just want a way to play my divx files and ogg/mp3s on the main system.

I've done some testing, converting divx to vcd but I always end up with unsynched sound. I also figure that keeping things in divx would be much better than spending the time converting them to vcd and having to change disks halfway through.

I'm a current (and very happy) Tivo user, but I wouldn't mind the ability to add MP3 playback and so I've been keeping half an eye on Freevo. The idea would be to put a fanless Epia-M into a hi-fi style case, and use it purely through a remote of some kind. Just like a Tivo in fact, but with the ability to do music too.

Cheers,
Ian

The case they used seems to be a Morex Cubid 2688R, thus the 1980's VCR look ;) However, this page of Mini-ITX compatible cases has several more attractive designs...

The case they used seems to be a Morex Cubid 2688R, thus the 1980's VCR look ;) However, this page of Mini-ITX compatible cases has several more attractive designs...

Or, head over to mini-itx.com and dig around for info on other cases and whatnot.

You're not a true Canadian! A true Canadian would only be distracted by beer!

And a CANADIAN SLASHDOTTER would be distracted by a beer-puter!

Mini-ITX.com keeps me informed of changes in the mITX world. Their front page has a link to a review of the Nehemiah core C3 by SilentPCReview. Hopefully the new core will be out soon if review sites have it in hand.

The 933 they are listing isnt anywhere up to the task of DVD playback.
They should of gone with the 933mhz M9000 or the 1Ghz M10000.

Not only do they use faster PC2100 ram, they also have USB2.0.

They really should of either A. Waited a month or two before releasing this or B. Used something other then the Mini-ITX formfactor.

Tom's has an article comparing these diffrent boards right here.

The 933 they are listing isnt anywhere up to the task of DVD playback.
They should of gone with the 933mhz M9000 or the 1Ghz M10000.

Not only do they use faster PC2100 ram, they also have USB2.0.

They really should of either A. Waited a month or two before releasing this or B. Used something other then the Mini-ITX formfactor.

Tom's has an article comparing these diffrent boards right here.

See mini-itx.com for a much more complete list of products and reviews.

(Top left corner: "Tom takes notice", referring to the belated nature of the Tom's Hardware article.)

The form factor is very small -- go to the hardware section for pics of various cases. People have even modded them into old game console cases and the like. The ones powered by the VIA Eden processor have no processor fan at all. The motherboards have built in sound, video (including TV out) and network. Drop in some RAM (the latest models take DDR2100), a hard drive, a slimline DVD-ROM drive, and a TV tuner card, and you have a combination DVD/DivX/MP3/OOG/VCD/whatever player with music visualization, network streaming, and PVR capabilities.

The form factor is very small -- go to the hardware section for pics of various cases. People have even modded them into old game console cases and the like. The ones powered by the VIA Eden processor have no processor fan at all. The motherboards have built in sound, video (including TV out) and network. Drop in some RAM (the latest models take DDR2100), a hard drive, a slimline DVD-ROM drive, and a TV tuner card, and you have a combination DVD/DivX/MP3/OOG/VCD/whatever player with music visualization, network streaming, and PVR capabilities.

--jeff++

I've built a couple of these. Great info and project ideas at www.mini-itx.com (creative name, eh?) and SPCR keeps up with much of this hardware.
I'm using a passive cooling model, a seagate barracuda, and a case with an fanless external power supply (blister pack) for my entertainment server, less than whisper, almost silent. Great server for an audiotron.

The nice thing about small form factor is that there are really quiet and can go into the louge. For example I have one which I use to stream MP3's from my main PC (via WiFI) into my Hifi. Also if you are like most geeks and have lying around you can make a new PC for about $150. I would also recommend Mini ITX. Cool service and quick delivery

Rus

You didn't mention how powerful a PC you were trying to make. Mini-ITX (more here) exists for making a silent PC.

I'm assuming because you are running this at night it will be a server. If you're talking about a small load server you could even go with one of the Eden based EPIA boards. There isn't even a fan on the processor.

As for the power supply, the morex 55W at either of the aforementioned sites will power most EPIA systems. Rumour is there will be a more powerful Morex-like PSU coming out soon.

-> Fritz

...here's one.

A pop-up gaming coffee table.
You've probably seen the pop-up coffee tables in furniture stores and what not, that's where I got my idea.

Plan is to build a 3 x 6 foot coffee table, with another box inside of it. Inside there will fit all my gaming consoles as well as a video and sound switcher - leaving only 3-4 cables to be seen. 1 for the sound, 1 for video, 1 for ethernet and 1 for power.

I examined the way the pop-up tables work in stores, and it seems reasonably easy to build. I may even go for an electronic actuator with spring assist to raise the console section.

So, when I want to play a game I push a hidden button on the side of the coffee table. Center section slides up with all my gaming consoles sitting there. Pick the console, via the video/audio switch, plugin the game, and hit power. Then I can either lower the center section, or leave it up - either way it'll work fine.
In the end, it will look like this POP-UP TV stand, only in a coffee table form.

Side Note:
My actual design plans to take this a tad further, I plan on installing a Mini-itx system inside as well as my DVD, VCR, and CD players. Then using an RF blaster I can send commands to the respective player while the main section is closed. It'll give me this "hidden" technology look that I'm attempting to go for.

How about a toaster and a computer?

I am building a mini-itx machine into a cheap tool box. I plan on putting a small, color LCD screen into the lid, and make it removable.

It will be kind of like those PSX systems with the screen. Except it will also be a portable Tivo, DVD player, MP3 player, emulator machine...

I have all the bits except the motherboard and screen. The prices on both of those continue to drop, so I can't decide when to order.

Check out mini-itx.com. It seems to be a pretty good resource. I ended up buying parts from two of the companies listed in their USA resources page. I do however, have a couple of pointers for you. First, the 600 MHz Eden comes on the Eden-M motherboard which isn't all that well supported on Redhat 8.0 (no clue about 9, obviously) which is why I went with the Mandrake 9.1 beta. You will most likely have to download the ALSA drivers for the sound card (expect to spend some time building those). Second, if you go with a "fanless" case it will most likely require a "slim" cdrom drive. These take a 50 pin connector instead of a 40 pin connector for the IDE bus, 4 pins for electricity, and 4 pins for audio out. Make sure that the case either comes with the adaptor or you order one, they arn't easily avalible in the states (and don't buy one from www.ussa.com, current low price for a slim samsung 24x12x24x8 cdrw/dvd drive on pricewatch their service sucks, go with mwave.com instead. If you don't believe me look at bizrate.). Finally, the 401b WinTV card from Haupage has a funny way to encode sound, an external jumper to the input of the soundcard. This is actually a problem for the EPIA-M since you have a choice between 5.1 sound or stereo + line in + mic and any problems with the sound card affect your ability to coordinate sound and video. If you have a descent stereo you might want to get a different TV Encoder card.

re the sibling-post, parallel-ATA is legacy, S-ATA's more efficient ( non-blocking, without command-redundancy, out-of-order execution in the upcoming Seagates, etc. )

but what the parent is describing, here, is Mini-ITX ( Kermit-style YayYy! )
Ahem.

Doing it with C3's or Transmetas, I could see, but Sparcs?

Cheap enough for India?
... hmmm let's see, canneries workers, wages...
here we are, 6-day work-week, 150 rupees/day ( about $2.70 US per day ).

So with 52 weeks/year, that'd be $842.4/year, with no sick-day or holiday ( or benefits, of any kind ), ever, compared with our .. more-than-order-of-magnitude greater wages?

Excuuuse me?
Vast and profitable market?

I think someone should consider the difference between the margins gettable in the US and the margins gettable in India, and if they want to expand into India ( or China, or anywhere in similar condition ), I'll invest in 'em, just because I enjoy it when others are more cognitively lively, but to mistake this for some Get Rich, Very Profitable, While We Keep Our Leverage scheme...

... of course, some'd call it a conflict-of-interest, too, eh?
IF All Others are kept ignorant/poor/limited, THEN they can't threaten Our Glorious Importance ( economic or political or governing-influence or however one's measuring ), but...
IF we go and make a bit of money bringing 'em up to technological effectiveness, THEN they might go and threaten to be our .. equals!!

#undef sarcasm

Sorry, but that point IS true, and it DOES pertain to nationalism's/protectionism's 'national security interests', etc:
If the "first world" becomes both technologically AND economically insignificant in the world, ... exactly how well would we 'adapt' or 'adjust' to that, or would we throw some wars .. To PROVE, We Were Important...

( glancing back through history, looking greyish )

My toaster STILL can't run NetBSD. They need to hurry up the development of it.

I'll say. I've been running Windows XP on my toaster for months.

Try the Via C3 ITX CPU/motherboard combos. You can build a machine that runs without a fan and has something like 11"x10"x2" footprint. There's a few sites out there that build complete systems with slimline CD-ROMS (or DVDs) for around $400.

Here's a link:

http://www.mini-itx.com/store/

You can then either boot the machine from an Linux Terminal Server floppy or CD, or from something like a Knoppix CD, or you can netboot them; you don't even have to bother installing anything locally. You wire everything together with a small Ethernet hub. Since nothing is installed on the local machines, it's easy to set up. Applications are run remotely through terminal emulators, X11, or VNC. All you need to do on the server is set up a DHCP server and xdm (if they aren't already set up).

That kind of setup is not going to be a lot more expensive than plugging in multiple graphics cards, but it's a whole lot easier to set up, scales better, lets you add more servers easily, will perform better, and your users will probably be happier, too.

1) Rent Herbie the Love Bug and throw in a few VIA Motherboards to make it look authentic
2) ???
3) Profit!

. . . make the first toaster with an IP address . . .

And they're both still behind VIA and IBM on both power consumption and heat.

VIA chips have a lot less processing power, but wow can you do some wierd and neat things with them. Multiply the Mhz rating of a C3 by .75 and you get it's pentium equivalent. And they run as cool as a 486 (thereabouts). So they max out at 933Mhz (equal to about a 700Mhz pentium-III), they run air cooled with just a heatsink. That's just great.

We all know how great the powerpc chip is for laptops, anyone who owns a Mac laptop can fill you in far more than I can.

I always thought the "big boys" were more concerned with raw cpu ops/cycle or Mhz than power and heat, at least there's a shift of views in both camps. This can't be anything other than a good thing, otherwise, I predict by 2060 if processors keep getting as hot as they have been, running your PC without a coolermaster "absolute zero cryogenic cooling unit" will cause nucleur fussion to occur inside your case. Hello miniature sun. That would be AMD's model, intel's would just vaporize everything in a wide radius.

It'd be nice if the component makers would establish an "open laptop" form factor. We've alreadt got mini-ITX. We just need a chassis/monitor and DC power specification.

Here you'll find the inexpensive cases you need, and here you'll find where to buy a mini-itx mainboard.

I just found a picture...

We white-boxed ours from a local clone maker. Micro-ATX Nforce boards, Durons, 128mb of memory. No CDROM, no hard disk, no floppy. Even in a real Micro ATX case, they are big, but they sure are fast! Many a time I've shocked an onlooker by telling them I was working on a terminal!

• Convert incoming power (whatever form) to 42VDC.
• Have a big bank of batteries charged by the 42 VDC.
• Run all your equipment from power cables attached to big copper busbars with 42V between them.

Disadvantage: dropping a wrench across the 42V busbars is a bad thing

If you don't have access to a lot of surplus rackmount PC's with 42VDC-in power supplies and are really on a budget, do it with 12VDC instead and use these servers that run off 12V very nicely.

The picture is of four Via Mini-ITX boards epoxed together. They have no internal connection other then there ethernet interfaces. It is not a 4-way SMP machine (they are _much_ more expensive than this setup).

Out of curiousity, does any know of a way to chain boards like this together through a fast bus like PCI or something?

I know about blade servers and how they work but I'm talking about regular commodity motherboards.

Why not get one of these and run this? You can get a complete system with power supply and nice case for less than just the C-ONE board alone costs.

Have you considered installing a mini-itx board?
They are VERY small board with every thing integrated onto it.
They are made by VIA and are actually quite cheap!

They're making the C3 cores for low power consumption devices, like mini-itx all-in-one boards.

They were bought out by VIA a while back. The Cyrix technology has eventually been recycled in the form of the EPIA mini-itx boards, and is currently enjoying somewhat of a renaissance.

Check this out for more info, or look at one of the endless "Someone put a PC into a toaster/NES/Chair/TeddyBear/Baby's Head" posts that Slashdot provides.

I quite fancy making a little DivX player to sit atop my TV. Sofa-based Civ3 would be neat, too. Cloney

Well, Philips' marketing and packaging is fairly ambiguous about what you can listen to.

Connect to Multiple Online Music Services, it says; now this sounds like "Streams that Philips wants you to listen to".
General alarm bells would be sounding already with that part of the blurb if it wasn't for:

Online Radio:
Go global! select from thousands of stations of music, news, sports and special interests in any language, from every region.

Which would lead me to think "Great! this listens to all the channels globally which run from shoutcast style systems (re: Mp3 capability)

And I would have been wrong.

And it would have gone back to the store in a hurry.

Anyway; I've always fancied making one of these myself, possibly with a Mini_ITX form factor :) - And then hook it up to a significantly larger sound system ;)

Check out the EPIA series motherboards. This site has mucho information, (but unless you're in the UK you'll probably want to order from a local retailer - they're in the UK.)

Real nice boards - the M series has a hardware decoder for MPEG 2 and TV out, etc. Works under Linux - some issues with drivers - check to forums.